1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for classifying a plurality of images into groups of similar images, and for printing a recommended image of each group.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, high-capacity memory cards have become widespread as memory media for digital cameras and mobile phones. Since such high-capacity memory cards can store large numbers of images, it is sometimes difficult for the use to retrieve a desired image from among the large number of stored images. Accordingly, there has been proposed a printing device able to extract and print an image desired by the user, from among a large number images stored on a memory card (see JP2005-301008A).
The printing device disclosed in JP2005-301008A is adapted to extracting images shot of people from among images stored on a memory card; displaying the images on a display; and when the user has selected a desired image while viewing images displayed on the display, printing the selected image.
Owing to the ease with which large numbers of images can be stored on a memory card, there are instances in which a user will shoot a number of shots of the same subject, and of the same composition. In such cases, where the subject is person for example, a number of similar images of the person, each taken with the same composition, may be stored on the memory card.
With the printing device disclosed in JP2005-301008A, if a large number of similar images of the same person are stored on a memory card in this way, all of the considerable number of images will be displayed on the display. Consequently, the user will have to select a desired image worth printing from among this large number of similar images, which is extremely laborious.
Moreover, with the printing device disclosed in JP2005-301008A, it is necessary to determine, for each image stored on the memory card, whether a human subject appears in the image; and once this determination has been made for all of the images, to then display those images in which human subjects have been determined to appear.
Since the determination as to whether a human subject appears is accomplished through analyzing the image data of each individual image, it takes a relatively long time to complete the determination process for all of the images, and a resultant problem is that it takes a relatively long time for printing of a preferred image (an image in which a human subject appears) to be completed.
The problems mentioned above are not exclusive to cases where memory cards are used, but are common generally to instances where only a preferred image is to be selected for printing from among a plurality of images.